


In the Low Lamplight, I was Free

by pettifogger



Series: Cover Me [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, As much as 10k words can be a slow burn, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Din says good girl, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Fucking in the Razor Crest, Oral Sex, Possessive Din Djarin, Reader has a bit of an attitude, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Someone on tiktok called Din a tin can with top energy and I can't agree more, Sort Of, Switching, Title from a Hozier Song, Touch-Starved Din Djarin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettifogger/pseuds/pettifogger
Summary: Smart people don’t get stranded on an ice planet in subzero temperatures with a faceless bounty hunter and his wrinkly green kid. And yet, here you are. Freezing your ass off on Maldo Kreis, of all fucking places, with a sentient hunk of metal and a little green baby for company. You’re not scared, but you’re definitely not a genius. And to top it all off, you’re cold.You have something the Mandalorian wants. The Mandalorian has something you need. What could go wrong?Loosely based on Chapter 10 ofThe Mandalorian, “The Passenger.”Part 1 ofCover Me(can be read as a standalone):Part 1(you’re here!) →Part 2→Part 3→Part 4→Part 5
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian/Reader
Series: Cover Me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057175
Comments: 31
Kudos: 618





	In the Low Lamplight, I was Free

You’re not a coward. That much you know. Cowards don’t galaxy-hop aboard smugglers’ ships with fewer than fifty credits to their name. You do, though, so you’re not a coward, but you’re beginning to think you might not be a genius either. Smart people do things like saving their money and staying out of trouble. Smart people don’t get stranded on an ice planet in subzero temperatures with a faceless bounty hunter and his wrinkly green kid. 

And yet, here you are. Freezing your ass off on Maldo Kreis, of all fucking places, with a sentient hunk of metal and a little green baby for company. You’re not scared, because you’re not a coward, but you’re definitely not a genius. And to top it all off, you’re _cold_.

☆

Case in point: smart people would turn and walk in the other direction if they saw a Mandalorian approach. If anyone else had been working the bar in Chalmun’s Cantina and seen a Mandalorian dressed head to toe in shiny metal armor—Maker, is that _beskar?_ —they would have busied themselves with something, like scrubbing the used mugs extra hard or suddenly finding a sticky patch on the counter that is in desperate need of wipe-down. 

But you’re not that hypothetical sensible person. You’re curious to a fault. While every patron averts their eyes, you watch the Mandalorian walk from the doorway to a table in the back corner of the room and sit down across from Peli Motto. You’ve been on this planet long enough to know Peli Motto is good at sabacc and bad at saying no to her friends, but you don’t know anything about her past. Nothing that would explain why a bounty hunter would make a beeline to her table, nor why she greets him like she’s been expecting his arrival.

The noise level in the cantina, which dropped to zero when the patrons saw the Mandalorian enter, slowly rises back to normal. Two dozen pairs of eyes that had been studiously avoiding the beskar armor and the blasters strapped to the hunter’s waist slowly return to whatever they were looking at before. The music picks up again, and soon enough regulars are calling for your attention and you’re back in the rhythm of work. You can’t stop glancing over at Peli’s table, though. The two of them look to be deep in conversation, and your curiosity is insatiable.

You’re in the middle of smiling your way through an unpleasant conversation with a Twi’lek regular—recounting his conquests to you, both in battle and in bed—when you hear your name from across the room. It’s coming from the back corner, where Peli sits with the Mandalorian. You turn and see Peli waving you over. The Mandalorian is turned towards you too, but you can’t tell if he’s looking at you underneath that shiny metal helmet. Peli holds up an empty mug and shakes it. You wipe your sticky hands on a discarded rag, excuse yourself from the conversation with the Twi’lek who is _definitely_ flirting with you, and grab a pitcher of ardees on your way over.

Peli, as usual, drops right into the middle of a conversation without so much as a greeting. 

“You’ve seen people like him before.”

You frown and refill their mugs with the amber-colored ardees. “Like what, exactly? Armored? That’s half the people who come through here.”

She shakes her head. “Not exactly.” She nods at the faceless man. “Bucketheads. You know, armored bounty hunters who never take off their helmets.”

“Mandalorians.” You’ve heard the stories. And you’ve seen a few in your travels, though you’ve never gotten close enough to interact with one. Until now, that is. 

The armored man nods. 

“This is Mando. Old friend. He’s looking for others like him. I thought you mentioned to me that you’d seen a few before you landed on Tatooine.”

You lean your hip against the table and look at the two of them. You’re not sure where this interaction is going. Something about the Mandalorian—Mando’s—countenance doesn’t sit well with you. You don’t trust people who hide their faces. Cowards hide their faces, and you’re not a fan of cowardice. 

“Maybe, maybe not. Depends.”

“Depends on what?” It’s the first time the Mandalorian speaks, and his voice is processed through some kind of filter in his helmet that makes it sound just slightly inhuman. His voice is deep and firm, a commander’s voice, with a metallic edge. It makes you trust him even less.

“Depends on if you’re going to tip me for my excellent service.”

His helmet shifts and you suddenly get a sense that he’s rolling his eyes under that helmet.

“This is useless,” he says.

From behind you, you hear your name slurred in a familiar voice. You turn and see the Twi’lek drunkenly waving at you, and you make a dismissive gesture back. He might be a regular, but you’d be pleased if you could piss him off enough that he wouldn’t come back. Dealing with sleazy patrons is probably your least favorite part of your job, which is saying something. It’s hard to find _anything_ to like about working as an underpaid bartender at a cantina on Tatooine, of all places. 

You turn back to the table. “What if I told you I _have_ seen more than one of your kind?”

Peli raises an eyebrow. The Mandalorian sits forward in his seat.

“Where?”

“Depends on whether or not you’ll take me there.”

The Mandalorian leans back. Peli frowns at you, then looks at the armored man. “I didn’t think she’d be so difficult.”

You roll your eyes.

“You want me to take you there?” The modulated voice sounds—curious, actually.

“Yeah. I give you the name of a place, you give me a ride. I have no intention to stay on this husk of a planet for any longer than I need to.”

“Give me the name.”

You put your hand on your hip. “Trask. Kol Iben system.”

“Trask?” Peli asks in disbelief. “Talk about a backwater.”

“Yeah, well. I was passing through Kol Iben with a crew of smugglers some time ago. We saw some folks that looked like you when we stopped on Trask. Armored, you know. Always kept their helmets on. So far as I could see, that is.”

“Why do you want to go to Trask?”

“Change of scenery,” you shrug. “I’ve already been here three months. That’s too long. Spend more than a month on Tatooine, and you’d want to hitch a ride to a water planet too.”

The Mandalorian nods, like he actually understands what you mean. Maybe he does. He’s a traveler, too; the kind of person who gets restless when they’ve slept in the same bed too many times, who starts to feel uncomfortable when they’ve stayed in one place long enough that they get to know the neighbors.

“All you have to offer is the name of a planet?”

You frown. “Well, yeah. Wasn’t that the deal?” 

“Trask is a small planet. Won’t be hard to find Mandalorians there, if there are any. Why should I take you?”

Kriff, this buckethead is getting on your nerves. You’re ignoring the persistent pleas of the Twi’lek at the bar and are definitely forgoing tips from some other regulars so you can be condescended by some arrogant humanoid in a tin can. You’re about to walk off in a huff when Peli interjects.

“Mando—you said you were having trouble with the wiring of your fridge, didn’t you?”

_Fridge? Who is this guy?_

Peli seems to sense your confusion. “In-built carbonite system on the _Razor Crest._ His ship,” she explains. “Good for bounty hunters on long trips.”

_Charming_ , you think. _A_ __p_ ortable fridge full of dead people. _

The Mandalorian nods.

“I can’t fix it myself,” Peli continues, “because you won’t let the droids anywhere near it. But she’s good with wiring and coding. She fixed one of my pit droids when its programming went haywire. I bet she can fix your carbo system faster than you can jump to the next system.”

You have to agree. You’ve never fixed a mobile carbonite system before, but you’re pretty sure you can figure it out. You are good with your hands, after all. And if fixing a bounty hunter’s corpse fridge is what it takes to get off this Maker-forsaken planet, you’ll do it. No questions asked.

“I fix your carbonite system and I tell you exactly where I’ve seen Mandalorians on Trask. You take me there. Deal?”

A long pause. That mask is completely unreadable. It’s unnerving. You hope it’s a short trip from Tatooine to Trask, because you don’t want to be around this sentient hunk of metal any longer than you need to be.

“Deal.”

You shake his leather-covered hand, and the deal is made.

☆

When Peli said the Mandalorian owned a pre-Imperial ship, she was being polite. If she was being frank, she would have said he flies a hunk of junk. 

The _R_ _ _azo_ r Crest _ is docked outside Peli’s shop, and if you didn’t know better, you’d have thought it was an abandoned ship ready to be scrapped and sold for parts. Instead, the gruff Mandalorian is loading supplies up the gangway while you stand with Peli and watch in disbelief. 

“ _That_ is not a ship. _That_ is a junker.”

Peli gives you a wry smile. “Very observant.”

“Can that even leave the system without falling apart? How does she carry enough fuel to run a carbonite system while still staying in flight? And you’re telling me this thing has hyperdrive?” 

Peli shrugs. “I thought the same thing the first time he came through. But she’s still flying.”

You make a noise of disbelief and watch as the Mandalorian disappears into the cargo hold. “If this ship breaks apart in space and I die, and the last sight I’ve seen is Mos Eisley, I will haunt your ass.”

“You’ll be fine, princess. Never knew you to have such an attitude about a little rust.”

You huff. You’re not a princess. You’ve flown in junkers worse than this. You’ll never forget trying to fly through an asteroid storm in a gutted freighter when the captain—who was supposed to be piloting the ship, not _you_ , the _hired hand_ —passed out drunk in the galley. Now that you think about it, the _Razor Crest_ looks just fine. If it weren’t for its irascible owner, that is. 

“Thanks for arranging this,” you say, bumping Peli with your elbow. “I appreciate it.”

“Anytime.” Under her gruff exterior, Peli is kind. You’ll never tell, though. “And you’re welcome to stop by anytime you’re passing through. And I’m sure Chalum would take you back at the cantina. Word is the bar has never run so well.”

You scoff. “Chalum is a flatterer.”

“Well, anyway. You’d best go claim a spot on that ship before Mando covers all the good places to sleep with busted armor and frozen bodies.”

_Charming_ , you think. You wonder how many times you’ll think that before you’re on Trask. 

As you’re walking to the ship, carrying the coarseweave bag containing all your worldly possessions, the Mandalorian reappears. He ducks under a doorway and you see him turn his helmet in your direction. You square your shoulders and plant your feet. 

“Where do I go? I don’t have much, but I need to lay out my sleeping roll somewhere.”

He stays still for a long moment. It’s incredibly disconcerting, the lack of facial expressions. “Don’t care.” Then he clanks past you towards Peli, who hits herself on the forehead like she’s forgotten something important. 

You continue into the ship, climbing over crates and boxes littering the cargo hold. You can’t help but wonder what’s in them. For all your hitchhiking, you haven’t traveled with too many bounty hunters. They move too fast to carry stowaways; they don’t even stop for distress signals. You’re used to sleeping among boxes of stolen goods and long-life rations stolen from merchant ships. You can’t imagine what a Mandalorian keeps tucked away in the crevices of his ship. Shrunken heads, probably, if the legends are true. Bits and pieces of quarries past, kept as souvenirs. Blasters and knives like you’ve never seen. Hell, maybe he even has a lightsaber around, stripped from the body of a dead Jedi. _That_ would be something. 

As you wonder, you find a clear space in the hold and pull the sleeping roll out of your bag. You used to have a collapsible cot to go with it, but you lost that in a game of sabacc against a wookiee a few planets ago. You’ll never play against a wookiee again. Bastards are too clever. 

The thump of beskar on durasteel catches your attention. Behind you, the Mandalorian is walking up the gangway, with what looks like a floating metal egg in tow. 

_Now that’s not any kind of droid I’ve seen before,_ you think. 

The Mandalorian gives no sign that he’s acknowledged your presence, and pushes the egg into a corner of the room. He presses one of the buttons on the front, and the top half of the sphere retracts. You take a step to the right, peering around him to see what’s inside. 

The Mandalorian is talking in that low, modulated voice, and you can’t imagine what he’s saying. Then he turns, and your jaw drops. 

In his arms is a tiny green creature wrapped in a fluffy brown coat. The thing has massive ears and equally massive eyes, plus wispy grey hairs on its head like an old man. Three little fingers sprout from each hand, which are gripping the fabric between the Mandalorian’s armor panels. The way the Mandalorian is holding him is—surprisingly tender, actually. It’s almost cute. 

_Okay, so he has a pet._ You look closer at the creature, trying to decide if it’s more human or animal. _Or—a kid?_

You rifle through your scant memories of your new traveling companion and wonder if anything about him suggests that he is this kid’s biological father. Not that it matters, of course. Biological or not, the green thing could be his kid. You’d just assumed from his general size and shape that the Mandalorian was a human. He could be a human _oid,_ now that you think about it. He could be hiding lekku or montrals or tentacles under that helmet. Then again, you saw a sliver of his wrist when he was loading boxes earlier, and his skin was human-colored. Not many other species in the galaxy have skin on the same spectrum as humans. You don’t see many other species with deep brown skin the color of rich earth or the sun-warmed tan of rolling dunes or the fair off-white of a full moon. His skin was somewhere in the middle, olive-toned and warm. 

So: unlikely that the little green thing is his offspring. That means you’re traveling with a human Mandalorian— _a galaxy-renowned bounty hunter_ —who happens to have the world’s cutest little critter stowed away in a floating metal egg, who also happens to be green.

As if this trip could get any stranger. 

☆

Now, that thought sounds like a funny joke. It turns out, it could get stranger. You’re less than half a day into the journey to Trask when you realize that the wrinkly green kid is—well, not normal. Not that a six-fingered, grey-haired infant is typical, but you’ve seen weirder. But when you’re walking to the cockpit to debrief the Mandalorian on the status of the carbo system, you see the kid reach his little hand out and close his big eyes. You linger in the doorway and watch as the kid concentrates so hard you think steam is about to come out of his ears, when a silver ball attached to a lever on the console twists—slowly at first, then rapidly—and flies across the cockpit to his hand.

_Well_ , you think, _I’ll be damned. The little bastard is telekinetic._ You walk into the cockpit and look at the kid in his floating crib, now babbling happily as he plays with the silver ball. 

“Does he do that often?”

The Mandalorian looks over his shoulder and grunts in acknowledgement. “Yeah.” He nods in the direction of the kid. “Make sure he doesn’t choke on it.”

You consider telling him that you’re here to fix his carbonite system and hitch a ride, not to be a nanny, but you look over at the kid’s giant eyes and think better of it. 

“Come here.” You pick up the kid and settle into the co-pilot’s seat. You bounce your knee and the child giggles, tossing the ball in his tiny hands and cooing. It’s cute, you have to admit. Almost makes you forget the kid is, apparently, a wizard.

Outside, stars pass by. It’s dark and clear out, no asteroids or space junk in sight. You like the silence in space, the absence of any sound but the low hum of a ship in flight. The _Razor Crest_ doesn’t seem like the kind of ship that would fly smoothly, but she does. She’s nearly silent as The Mandalorian steers her through the empty sky towards the Kol Iben system.

You glance over at your traveling companion. His armor is so shiny it reflects anything around it. It’s surprisingly beautiful, starlight dancing across the beskar. When he shifts his helmet just right, stars scatter across his visor in a way that almost looks like he has stars where his eyes should be. It’s times like this that make you glad you chose this life. Sure, sometimes you miss the feeling of knowing where you’re going to sleep every night, and you don’t love carrying all your money and possessions in a coarseweave sack, but you get to see the galaxy. And you get to meet new people. The cute green kid might make your list of favorite strangers you’ve ever met. 

His silent, stoic dad—not so much. But he’s growing on you.

You settle into the co-pilot’s seat and cross your legs, idly petting the child’s ears. He giggles and drops the ball, which you catch before it hits the floor. You hand it back to him, and he resumes tossing it up and down.

“He’s cute,” you say, an effort to break the silence.

You think the Mandalorian is going to ignore you again, but he doesn’t. He glances over at you and the child. “Yeah. He is.”

He sounds genuinely affectionate. You let the silence hang in the air for a long moment, and the Mandalorian turns to face the viewport again. 

“I rewired the control console for the carbonite system, by the way,” you explain. “There were some wires crossed, but I think that’s all. I checked the carbo chamber and the pipes and all the mechanics seem to be fine. Just an electrical problem.”

He nods. 

“Peli might’ve been able to fix it, but I’m not so sure. I think she would’ve needed the droids, but she said you’re not keen on them.”

Silence from the Mandalorian. You want to ask him questions: you want to ask why he dislikes droids; you want to ask why he’s looking for others like him; you want to ask about the bodies frozen in carbonite in his cargo hold. But you don’t think you’ll get anywhere with that, so you just join him in silence and look out through the viewport. Stars wheel around in the sky outside, and the kid is soft and warm in your arms. It’s—nice, actually. You tilt your head back against the chair and let your eyes slip shut. It won’t be long before you arrive at Trask. 

☆

You wake up to the sound of alarms screaming. The ship veers sharply starboard, jolting you awake, and you hear the Mandalorian’s gruff voice telling you something that sounds important.

“What?” Your head is still fuzzy with sleep, and you can’t figure out what he just said over the din of alarms and loose cargo banging against the cockpit door. 

“I said, strap in. And put the kid in the crib.”

You must’ve been dead asleep, because the _Razor Crest_ has shifted from silent gliding to roaring through space. A quick look at the map on the control console shows that you’re passing through an abandoned part of the Outer Rim, approaching Maldo Kreis. Nowhere _n_ _ _ear_ _ the Kol Iben system. Then the flashing radar screen catches your attention, and you see two ships illuminated in red displayed behind the _Razor Crest._

_Dank farrik_. “Are we being tailed?”

“Yes. You slept through it.” Curt as always. “Put the kid in the crib.”

You turn in the chair and reach behind you for the floating egg. The kid is clinging to your shirt, his big black eyes full of fear. You stroke his head and shush him as you yank his crib towards you, trying to process what the hell is going on. 

When the kid is safely settled in his nest of blankets and the crib is locked shut, you go to stand and get thrown port as the ship tilts, almost crashing into Mando. 

You brace yourself on the back of his chair and go for the door. “I’m going to man the laser cannons.” 

“No,” Mando barks. Lights flash across the control console, the display showing the tailing ships getting closer. “We’re trying to evade, not destroy. We don’t need more trouble. Sit down and strap in.” 

You wish you could do something more useful, and you really wish you knew what was going on, but you know when to shut up and obey. 

Out the starboard side of the viewport, you see a planet—Maldo Kreis, apparently—rapidly approaching. The _Razor Crest_ veers sharply, and the ships trailing behind you briefly disappear from the radar. Surely, he’s not planning to enter the atmosphere of this planet at full speed? You have no faith in this ship to stay in one piece, yet the Mandalorian gives no sign that he intends to slow down. The planet grows bigger and bigger in the viewport, details of its surface becoming rapidly apparent. You don’t recognize the name, and you’re not sure what system you’re in; all you can tell is that the Mandalorian intends to crash-land his ship onto an ice planet to evade the ships on his tail.

_Maker,_ you think, gripping the armrests of the co-pilot’s chair, _I am a fucking idiot._

☆

It turns out, crashing into an ice planet is both more and less comfortable than you thought it would be. On one hand, the _Razor Crest_ didn’t incinerate when entering that atmosphere, nor did it shatter into a million pieces when it hit the surface of Maldo Kreis. On the other hand, despite Mando’s best efforts to crash in a nice, flat ice field, the ship skidded into a glacier.

Now you’re standing in the cargo hold, freezing your ass off, staring out a giant gash in the side of the ship. Outside, snowflakes fall. Inside, you can see your breath. The Mandalorian stands beside you, the kid beside him, floating in his little egg. You’re all relatively uninjured, though you have a few bruises here and there and the kid vomited all over the floor as soon as you opened his crib. 

All you can think, standing in the cargo hold of a bounty hunter’s wrecked ship, on an Outer Rim planet, with no rescuers in sight, is that you wish you’d never walked over to his table in the first place. 

☆

Maldo Kreis is, as you learn, in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s allegedly inhabited, albeit sparsely. The Mandalorian scans the area with some clever tech hidden in his helmet and declares the surrounding area empty. The _Razor Crest_ is too banged up to fly, and even with your combined knowledge, you can’t figure out how to fix it without proper tools and scrap metal to patch up the gash delivered by the glacier. 

You’re sitting in the cockpit, tossing the ball back and forth with the baby, when an idea comes to mind. You turn around and shout back into the hold, “can this thing send a selective distress signal?”

The Mandalorian, who’s puttering around among his various busted-up possessions, stomps to the doorway of the cockpit. “What?”

You gesture to the control console. “This thing. Can it send a selective distress signal? You said we were being tailed by New Republic x-wings, so we don’t want them to receive a ping from us, but I know a smuggler who operates in this area. If we could just signal him, he might come and help.”

“Operates in ‘this area’?” The Mandalorian repeats. He sounds skeptical. “That’s not specific.” 

“Listen, I know it’s a long shot. But he’s a Kubaz smuggler and he told me Moldo Kreis is his home planet. If we set up a recurring, selective distress signal, there’s a chance he’ll pass through this airspace and hear it.” You cross your arms over your chest. “Do you have any better ideas?”

The Mandalorian shrugs. He looks to the side, where the kid is playing with the ball happily. The kid tosses it to you, and you catch it before tossing it back with a smile. 

Mando looks back at you. “Go ahead. It’s better than nothing.”

☆

As you learn, the sun sets early on Moldo Kreis. You’re not sure what star it orbits, but you’re on a side of the planet that gets slightly more night than day. And when it’s dark, it’s _dark_. The first night you spend on the planet, Mando settles the kid in his warm little crib—complete with an in-built heater, you’re jealous—and joins you in the cockpit. The sun is setting, and you can already tell it’s going to be pitch-black soon.

It’s been a long day, and you welcome nighttime as a chance to grab a little sleep when you can. You’ve taken stock of everything that survived the crash while the Mandalorian ventured out to survey the area. You’re bone-tired and a little giddy with exhaustion, leaning back in the co-pilot’s seat with your feet propped up on the control console. The Mandalorian sits in the captain’s seat, looking like a statue, which you’re quickly learning is his natural state. 

“I bet you’re faking that voice,” you say, breaking the silence. Snowflakes fall on the transparisteel windscreen, making geometric crystal patterns across the surface. 

He turns his head towards you slowly. He might’ve just been asleep; you don’t know. Earlier, he woke you up from a nap on a very comfortable patch of floor, and you’re still bitter about it. You don’t particularly care if you interrupted his beauty sleep.

“I bet you have some setting in that bucket that changes your voice. I bet your voice is actually really high-pitched. I bet you have a setting that makes your voice sound all deep and commanding when you really sound like a battle droid. _Roger, roger_.” 

He continues to look at you, his helmet impassive. You meant it as a joke, just trying to rib him, but you might’ve just flat-out insulted him. Once again: not that you care. You barely know him, and he’s made no effort to be particularly warm to you, so you don’t care if he’s pissed or insulted or apathetic. Though a laugh out of him would be a nice change. 

A long moment of silence, then: “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

You frown at him. “Why?”

He shrugs. That much you can tell, despite the clunky armor. “Why not?”

You look at him warily and keep your mouth shut.

“Do you trust me?”

Automatically: “No.”

“Good. You’d be an idiot if you did.”

_What_ is _this?_ you wonder. _I_ _s this…_ You don’t let yourself finish that thought, even in your head. _No, it’s not. He’s just fucking with you._

“What do you think I’m going to do to you?” He’s persistent, at least. 

Your frown deepens. “I don’t know.” 

“If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it days ago."

“Thanks, Mando. Really reassuring.”

“So, you think I’m going to—what? Kill you so I can feed you to the kid?”

You roll your eyes. Leave it to a bounty hunter to finally find a sense of humor in jokes about cannibalism. Well, now that you think about it, it wouldn’t be cannibalism, because you’re definitely not the same species as the green infant snoozing away in Mando’s quarters.

He looks out the snow-covered viewport. “I wouldn’t do that, you know.” He lets the words hang in the air almost long enough for them to have meaning. Then, with a shit-eating grin you can _hear,_ he clarifies, “Not to the kid. You’d taste gritty. He’d have sand in his teeth for ages.” 

You roll your eyes again, and he turns to face you. He repeats the command. “Close your eyes.”

Something in his modulated voice tells you he’s serious. You eye him skeptically, but eventually you slowly close your eyes. The light of the sunset passes through the snowflakes on the viewport and makes your eyelids glow a deep red-orange. Still, you can’t see anything, even as you hear Mando get out of his chair. You tilt your head, and you’re about to speak when he does.

“Cover your eyes. Just to be sure.”

You obey, bringing your hands up to cover your eyes. In complete blackness, you rely on your other senses to keep your bearings. You can still hear the soft flurry of snowflakes hitting the transparisteel and the low hum of the ship’s engine. You wonder if he can hear all these little things under his helmet. You wonder what details are lost when you’re separated from the world by a second skin made of metal. 

“What about now?”

His voice is a rich rumble and you tilt your head like a dog trying to figure out the source of a sound. Then you feel a gloved hand on your wrist, easing one of your hands away from your face. You keep the other over your eyes and let him move your free hand towards him. Under your fingers, you feel curved metal. His helmet. Your hand is on his helmet, which means he’s not wearing it. 

_Oh_. _That’s_ why his voice sounds different. And _closer_.

Is he really this stubborn? Taking his helmet off, risking the Mandalorian code, just to prove he wasn’t putting on a fake voice? He’s either stubborn or proud or a strange combination of both. It’s hard enough to get a read on him when you can’t see his face, and much harder when you can’t see anything at all. 

“Does my voice sound fake to you?” It sounds like a challenge. 

_Stars, no_. If possible, his real voice—unmediated, free of the helmet’s metallic modulation—is deeper and warmer than before. He is _definitely_ not faking it. You shake your head and pull your hand out of his like it’s going to burn you. 

“No.”

“Do you like it?”

_Do I like—what?_

“My voice,” he clarifies, as if he can read your thoughts. 

You like to think you’re good at reading people. It comes from the trade, hitchhiking your way from system to system. You have to get smart, be able to tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, figure out what people mean when they hide their true intentions in the words they leave unsaid. You’re good at telling when energy shifts: you can tell when friendly banter becomes fingers on triggers, and when anger softens into sadness. Now you can tell something has changed between you and him. 

_Do you like my voice?_ is what he said. But there’s another question there, and you can’t quite figure out what it is, but you know the answer all the same.

“Yes.” 

When he speaks again, his voice is even closer than before. “Good.” His voice is heavy, his tone charged. There’s more to what he’s saying than the literal definition of the words. In the breath he takes between speaking, you hear something that might be called desire; then again, you might just be hearing your own heart beat with the same feeling.

You wonder what he looks like, standing in front of you. Is he standing? His voice sounds like it’s coming from above, like he’s standing above you and looking down. Once again, you get the sense that you might be an idiot: at every fork in the road, you take the path that makes your life stranger. You chose to stay on Tatooine. You chose to get on a ship with a bounty hunter. You chose—well, you didn’t choose to crash-land on an ice planet, but you chose to stay and help these two beings you barely know. And just now, you chose to challenge a Mandalorian—to _tempt_ a Mandalorian, and it feels like he’s taking the bait. He told you to close your eyes and trust him, and you did. 

He’s close enough that you can feel the warmth of his body radiating into yours. If you reached out, you’re certain you could touch him. If you wanted, you could feel the cold beskar, the rough fabric underneath. You can smell him, too, the scent of worn leather and an unnamable rich smell that reminds you of warmth and desire. 

You’re about to reach out when you hear him move away. 

“Open your eyes.”

“What—”

“Open your eyes.”

You open them, and he’s back in the captain’s seat, helmet back on. He’s not even looking in your direction.

_What the hell was that?_

☆

A day passes without any sign of help. Then another. And another. Eventually, the three of you settle into a rhythm. During daylight hours, you and the Mandalorian busy yourselves with survival tasks. He uses the flamethrower built into his armor—because of _course_ he has a flamethrower built into his armor—to melt ice to rehydrate freeze-dried rations. You carefully reroute power from the ship’s central unit to functions essential to sustaining life, including heat in the cockpit and cold in the carbonite chamber. The latter was Mando’s suggestion: _if there’s one thing we don’t need right now_ , he explained, _it’s pissed-off quarry thawing out and going after us._ You can't argue with that logic.

Mando sets up the ship’s radar to send out pings every few hours, expanding the selective criteria from the Kubaz trader you mentioned to any ship without official designation. You both figure you’d have better luck convincing smugglers and outlaws to help you rather than New Republic bleeding hearts or Imperial war hawks. 

The kid doesn’t help much, but he does raise morale by being consistently adorable. Sometimes, you catch yourself watching Mando and the kid when you’re pretending to be busy with fixing things. Mando is stern with the kid when he does dangerous things—like jumping into tall snowdrifts face-first, or trying to eat inedible objects—but it always comes from a place of concern. You have no idea how a Mandalorian and a tiny green baby ended up together, but it’s clear that to Mando, this little green kid is his son. You have no doubt that if there were a choice between taking on the entire Empire and handing over the kid, Mando would get out his guns and charge into battle without a second thought. 

When the sun sets on the fifth day, Mando puts the kid to bed in his crib and the two of you crawl into the cockpit. You take turns sleeping and taking the watch, but there’s always an hour or so when you’re both awake, watching the sunset. The fifth night is colder than usual. The sunset was brilliant, but as soon as it dipped below the horizon, you were plunged into darkness and freezing temperatures outside the ship. You’re certain the ship’s climate control system is rewired correctly, but it feels like the air coming from the vents in the cockpit is lukewarm at best. 

Mando doesn’t seem to care. 

“You know,” you say, when it’s been silent for slightly too long, “I don’t mind the concept of dying, but I do mind the idea of dying in the cold.”

He looks over at you, impassive as always. 

“I know I complained about Tatooine, but I’ve decided that hot is better than cold. I’d rather die in the desert than in a glacier.”

“You’d say the opposite if you were still on Tatooine.”

Is that a hint of teasing you hear in his voice?

You huff, because you know he’s right. “It’s easy for you to say. I bet your armor has a built-in heater. All I’ve got is three layers of clothes.”

“It doesn’t,” he says bluntly. “There are other ways to get warm, though.”

You raise an eyebrow. _Is he implying what you think he’s implying?_ He can’t see the skepticism on your face in the darkness, so you make it clear in your voice. “Such as?”

A rustling sound, then the scrape of metal on metal. He presses something into your hands, and you feel the shape of a flask under your fingers. You take a sniff and it practically burns your nose. 

“Corellian whisky?” You take a sip and revel in the feeling of fire down your throat. “You’ve been hiding this from me the whole time?”

He makes a noise that could almost be mistaken for a laugh, and you pass the flask back to him. Your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness and you can see his outline as he tilts his helmet up and takes a sip. Without realizing it, your eyes fix on the bare skin revealed, watching his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. 

Maybe it’s the whisky making its way into your blood, but a thought emerges clear in your head: _I want to touch him_. Then you shake your head, because you wonder where the _hell_ that idea came from. You can’t blame it on the whisky, because you’ve only taken a sip. 

He offers you the flask again, and you take a longer drink. It makes you feel warm from head to toe, makes your skin buzz and your head spin in a pleasant way. It’s been a while since you had a good, strong drink, and you start to forget you’re stranded on an ice planet. You know, with a bounty hunter. And a telekinetic green infant. 

You lose track of time, passing the flask back and forth, catching tiny glances of the man under the mask in the darkness as he tilts his helmet back. Eventually, when it’s so dark your eyes can’t properly adjust, your curiosity gets the better of you. 

“So I know why you don’t take the helmet off,” you say, spinning your chair around on its axis. “Mandalorian code and all that. ’ _This is the Way.’_ But—like—is it that serious? Do they allow for, y’know, little mistakes?”

“Little mistakes?” Five days with Mando is enough time to know that tone means he’s amused. 

“Yeah. Like, you’re telling me _no one_ has seen your face? Since you took the oath? Come on, you must’ve slipped up once or twice.”

He sighs, and you think he’s going to let the conversation drop. To your surprise, he doesn’t.

“A droid saw it,” he explains. “An IG-series droid, reprogrammed as a caretaker. He took off my helmet to help me after I’d been hit in battle. He—he died, right after that.”

“You killed him?” _Damn, brutal._

“Maker, no,” he scoffs. “He—sacrificed himself.” Regret is heavy in his voice. “For me, and the kid, and our—our friends. He was the last person to see my face.”

Everything about the Mandalorian surprises you. He seemed irritable and stoic when you first met him, but you’ve seen his fierce protectiveness over the kid, and he talks about this IG droid like it was an old friend. And the hesitance before he said _our friends_ —like he’s not sure if they really are his friends. Like he doesn’t have anyone except the kid. The sadness in his voice makes your chest ache. You want to comfort him, but you’re not sure how.

Before you can think twice about it, you start talking. “So: no one can look at you,” you say. 

He nods. 

“What about—touch?”

You imagine he frowns under that helmet, but he gives no indication of a reaction. 

“What I mean is…” you trail off, standing up from your chair and crossing over to him. You handle your whisky well; you know when you’re drunk, and you’re not now. You just feel _warm_ as you stand in front of him and place your hands on his helmet. “...can I do _this_?” 

His hands come up to meet yours as you pull on the helmet. His grip on your hands is firm for several moments, resisting your efforts to move the helmet. You’re about to give up and apologize for overstepping when you hear him sigh. He lets go of the helmet and lets you ease it off. In the pitch-dark of night, you can’t see anything, but you can feel warmth radiating from him. You can smell whisky on his breath. 

You set the helmet down on the floor and hear him suck in a breath. You wonder how long it’s been since he breathed fresh, unfiltered air. Now that you’re standing here, in complete darkness, in front of a bare-faced Mandalorian, you realize you have absolutely fucking no plan whatsoever. You stay there, still as a statue, for several long moments. Then you step into the vee of his legs and hear him inhale sharply. You sink down into his lap, your legs fitting perfectly around his hips, your arms looping around his neck. 

“What I mean is…” you repeat, leaning in, “can I do this?” Your hands ghost across his face.

You hear him swallow hard. “ _Yes_.”

You lean in, and your lips brush against his cheekbone. “Can I do _this_?”

A sharp breath. His voice is low. “ _Yes_.”

Emboldened, you kiss his jaw. “Can I do _this_?”

“Yes.”

You brush your lips across the shell of his ear, then sink your teeth into the lobe. “And _this_?”

“ _Yes_.” 

All of sudden, he’s reaching up and threading his hands through your hair. You gasp as he pulls you up from where you were mouthing at his neck, tilting your head to kiss you. He tastes like whisky and smells like leather and you can’t help yourself as you flatten your hands on his chest and deepen the kiss. He groans when you lick his lips, and actually _moans_ when you chase the sound in his mouth. Your hands explore, roving across his chest, up to his neck, and finally, _finally_ back to his face. You feel stubble under your hands when you cup his cheeks, and you can tell his hair is thick and wavy when you run your fingers through it. He drops his hands from your hair to your waist, pulling you closer to him. You break the kiss and gasp as he forces your core against the fastening of his pants. 

“Oh, _Maker_ .” Just the movement of his body against yours makes your head spin. It’s been a long time since anyone touched you like this, and the darkness just makes you feel _more_. You rock your hips down on him, and it’s his turn to curse. His hand tightens on your shirt, grasping at the small of your back. 

“Take the gloves off.”

He sounds dazed. “What?”

You reach behind you and drag his hands between your bodies. “Take the gloves off.”

The gloves hit the floor with a soft thump and you guide his hands to your hips. You hitch up your shirt and he rests his hands on your bare skin. 

“Soft,” he breathes, and you briefly think you’ve broken his brain by kissing him. 

“What?”

“You’re so _soft,_ ” he says, as his calloused hands make their way up your sides to curl around your ribcage. 

“ _Mm_." You stifle a moan and reach for his wrists again, bringing his hands up to cup your breasts. His hands are rough but gentle as he explores you, kneading and cupping your curves. His touch is gentle but firm, learning his way around your body like you belong to him. You drop your forehead to rest against his, reveling in the way he lavishes attention on you. 

His voice is pitched low in the space between you. “Can I…”

“ _Yes_.” You’re not sure what he’s going to ask, but you don’t care. You need more. 

He reaches for the hem of your shirt and you take it off without any hesitation. You’re bare underneath and it’s cold in the cockpit; your skin prickles. Then his hot mouth finds your collarbone and you feel like you’re on fire. His words echo in your mind. _There are other ways to get warm._ He was right about that. 

“Mando,” you gasp, and he breaks away from your chest just long enough to kiss you. 

“Din,” he says, his voice rough.

“What?” 

“My name is Din,” he says, and ducks back down to bite your neck. “If we’re going to die here, you might as well know my name.” 

It’s a testament to how distracting his mouth is that the thought of death doesn’t bother you. He licks over the bite on your neck, and you grab his hair and gasp his name. You know this is monumental, removing his helmet and knowing his name, but it’s hard to focus on anything but the feeling of him kissing and licking a trail of fire down your chest. 

He takes your nipple in his mouth and you pull on his hair hard. “ _Kriff_. _Yes_. Keep going.” 

Your head tilts back as he continues, licking and sucking at your nipple until it’s a tight bud, then replacing his mouth with his hand and switching to the other one. His other hand roves down your body to your ass, digging in and dragging your hips closer until you’re flush against him. 

“ _Din_.” His name feels right in your mouth. “Din, _please._ ” You don’t know what you’re asking for, but you want to do something for him. You’re half naked and moaning in his lap, but he’s still fully clothed. You want to yank his armor off and tear his clothes so you can kiss his bare skin. You want to return the attention he’s giving you, but he gives no sign of being done with you. 

Finally, you pull his hair and tug him away from you. You kiss him, a good distraction as you reach for the fastenings of his armor. You trade kisses as he joins you, divesting himself of the beskar panels much faster than you can. Once the pauldrons and chestplate have hit the floor, you let him fiddle with the straps on his vambraces while you unbutton the shirt underneath. Eventually, he makes a triumphant noise and tosses the vambraces aside, freeing his arms. You kiss his neck and down to his collarbone, feeling his pulse flutter under your lips. 

He gasps your name and pulls you up for a kiss. You busy yourself with the hem of his pants, fumbling for the fastening in the dark and smiling against his mouth when you find it. You’ve barely gotten the top button undone when his hand shoots out to grab your wrist. 

In the hazy darkness, you can only see his outline as he holds your hand still. You wait for him to speak, but the only sounds you hear are his ragged breaths. 

You rest your forehead on his. Your heartbeat is pounding in your ears and between your legs. “Can I?” 

He knows what you’re asking.

Slowly, he nods, then tilts his head back against the chair as you slip your hand under the waistline of his pants. The muscles in his stomach jump when you unzip his fly and shove the fabric aside. He’s already hard when you finally get your hands on him. You bury your face in his shoulder and kiss his neck as you start to stroke him, from the curls at the base of his shaft to the sensitive tip. He’s a mess beneath you, breathing heavy and tensing up with every stroke. It’s like he’s scared of the pleasure, like he’s not used to another person’s touch. Now that you think about it, it might’ve been months— _years_ , even—since someone touched him like this. It fills you with a feral, possessive pride, the idea that he refuses intimacy from others but gives in to you so easily. For a man who commands attention and respect to surrender himself to you, to make himself vulnerable, is a stunning act. The heady power of it goes straight to your core, and you ache for some kind of stimulation. 

“Do you want to take this to that cot you call a bed?” You keep stroking him as you talk, reveling in the way his hips jerk when you pass your thumb over the head of his cock.

“No.” His voice is rough as sandpaper. “The kid—the kid will notice.”

_What a good parent,_ you think, and then you wonder why it turns you on so fucking much when he acts like such a dad. 

“Good thing I’m not picky,” you throw back at him. You shift out of his lap and sink down onto the floor, pushing his knees apart to make room for yourself between them.

“No—no, _no_ ,” he stutters, reaching down to try and pull you up.

You whine in response. _Let me fucking do this,_ you think. “What’s wrong?”

“If you—oh, _Maker_ ,” he cuts himself off with a moan as you twist your hands around his length. “Fuck. If you do that, I’m—oh, _fuck—_ not going to last.” 

“Good.” You honestly don’t know where this is going, and you don’t particularly care, because you need to make him come like you need air to breath. You need to feel his powerful thighs tense, listen to him moan your name as you swallow him deep. So you duck your head and replace your hands with your mouth, savoring the taste of him on your tongue.

He moans low and loud and it resonates through his entire body. Your eyes slip shut as you get to work, spitting into your palm to make it slick and wet as you work him with your tongue and your hands. His hands find your hair, and it’s not long before he gives in, thrusting his hips into your mouth. _Fuck, it’s good._ You feel so powerful, on your knees for him, breaking down his self-control until he’s fucking your mouth and cursing a blue streak in the darkness of the cockpit. You rock your aching core on your heel, tucked underneath you. It makes you moan, and the vibration of your moan on his cock makes his hips jerk so sharply you almost choke. 

You feel him start to tense underneath you, and then his hands tug at your hair so hard your mouth comes free with a distinctly unsexy pop. You sit back and wipe your lips, feeling messy and satisfied and _so fucking turned on._

“Get up here,” he growls, and you’re more than happy to obey. 

You’re barely on your feet when he crowds you, pushing you back against the console. _Stars, that’s hot_. He pushes you down until your back is flat against the controls, your thighs bracketing his hips. He bends down to kiss you, licking his own taste out of your mouth. You grab at him, hands roving through his hair and down his back, holding him as close to him as you can. When your hips rock against him, it feels like a burst of blinding light in complete darkness. You hear the noises you’re making echoing off the transparisteel viewport, little gasps and high-pitched moans you didn’t even know you could produce.

He’s not much better, grinding against your core and growling—actually _growling_ —when he gets the angle just right.

You can’t take it anymore. Your hands fiddle between your bodies, trying to free yourself from your leggings, but he’s faster. He bends down and yanks your boots off your feet, tossing them onto the pile of beskar in the corner. Then he goes for the waistline of your pants.

“Hips up,” he commands, and you lift your hips as he drags your leggings and underwear down in one fell swoop. It’s cold as hell in the cockpit, but when he pulls you close against him, you barely notice. He radiates heat, and the feeling of his skin against yours makes your blood spark. 

“I need…” you start to talk, but then he slips a hand between your bodies and you feel his thick fingers start to circle your clit. Your hand tenses on his arm, digging in hard. “Oh, _fuck_ , Din. _F_ _uck._ ”

“What do you need?” He’s going for a teasing tone, but his voice is shot through with barely-controlled desire.

“I—I, oh, _Maker_ , I need you inside me.” 

You think your grip on him can’t get any tighter, then you feel his fingers stroke the length of your slit and you gasp. Your hand tightens on his arm so hard you think it might leave a bruise in the shape of your fingerprints.

“You’re so wet,” he says, sounding amazed.

“Mm,” you agree. You toss your head back against the console, rocking your hips into his hand. “All for you.”

He growls, and you’re pleased that your guess was accurate: he’s possessive. All of a sudden, his fingers disappear from between your legs. You whine, not caring that you sound petulant and needy. 

“Open your mouth.” 

It’s an order, and you’re not going to question it. Obediently, you open your mouth, and he pushes his fingers past your lips. They’re still soaked with your own slick— _oh_ , that’s _filthy_.

“Suck.”

Your moan is muffled by his hand but you do as he says, swirling your tongue around his fingers, cleaning your them and covering them with spit. It makes you feel dirty and raw and precious, a pretty little thing for him to use as he wants. 

“Good girl.”

Your eyes roll back and you can’t help but moan. How did he know that’s what you wanted to hear? He pulls his fingers out of your mouth and replaces them with his lips, kissing you as he reaches down between your bodies to your entrance. Your heels dig into the backs of his thighs, still covered in the rough fabric of his trousers. 

“Look at you, so fucking eager for me.” His voice is deep and rough, and you’re almost irritated at how easily he flipped this on you. You had control when you were on your knees, but now he’s got you pinned, making you writhe around under him with just his hands.

“Is this what you wanted?” He strokes a spot inside you that makes your eyes roll back. _Stars, how is he so good at this?_

“No.” You shake your head. “Yes. No. Oh, kriff—“

You’re cut off as he pulls his fingers out, leaving you feeling empty and still buzzing with energy. 

His voice is next to your ear now. “You have to tell me what you want."

Immediately, you reply. “I want you inside me.” 

“I _was_ inside you.” He kisses your neck and it drives you wild. You can’t focus like this. 

“No—not like that— _oh._ I need you.”

“You have to be more specific.” His lips travel down your neck to your collarbone. “What do you want? Because if it’s not my hands…”

“Fuck me,” you blurt out. “I need you to fuck me, Din, _please_.” 

Apparently that's close enough to what he wanted to hear, because he stops teasing and tilts your face up to kiss him. You can feel him smile against your lips. Then you reach down between your bodies and guide him to your entrance, and the smile turns into a silent gasp.

“You can, you know,” you say. “I have—oh, Maker—I have the implant.” 

Once again, you think you’ve broken his brain. He takes a shaky breath and rests his forehead on yours. “ _Fuck_.” 

Funny, you’re thinking the same thing. Then he thrusts into you, shallowly, and you can’t think of anything at all. 

You can’t see him, but you can feel everything. The stretch as he fills you, the scratch of his stubble when he kisses your lips and jaw and neck. You bury one hand in his hair and wrap the other around his back. He hitches your thighs up around his hips and hits a new, deeper angle that makes you moan and your legs shake. 

“Fuck, you feel— _fuck_. So good.” His voice is ragged and raw, like he’s just run a race or shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Yeah?” You like hearing him tell you how you feel. It reminds you of exactly how much control you have over him, just by giving him this. 

“So kriffing—oh— _soft_ and _warm_. Like—fucking _heaven_.” 

He grips your waist and tilts your hips up. He’s so fucking strong, the way he can just move you the way he likes. It drives you _mad_. 

“Tell me how it feels.” His voice is ragged. 

“What?”

“How— _oh_ —how it feels. Me, inside you.”

_Stars_. “ _Full_. I feel so _full_. Oh, fuck, _Din_.” You want to say more, but you can’t form a coherent thought. Not when he’s everywhere, kissing you and making love to you and making you cry out his name.

His name on your tongue drives him wild. He growls and bears down harder, dropping his hand between your bodies to provide friction right where you need it. Your hand flies out against the viewport, bracing yourself against the cold transparisteel as he fucking _drives_ into you.

You feel the wave start to build as he keeps the pace steady and hard. It’s overwhelming; it feels like he’s everywhere at once. You drag him down to kiss him, hanging just on the edge. 

“Come on.” His voice is ragged. He’s relentless, pinning you down and driving you wild, and you _sob_. “Be a good girl. Come for me.”

The command, growled into your ear, pushes you over the edge. Your back arches and the inescapable feeling races up your spine and crashes over you, stars bursting behind your eyes and your blood turning to gold. You try to say his name, but it comes out a high-pitched, breathy moan. Your thighs tighten around his waist and he loses his balance, catching himself on the console. He chokes out a groan as you tighten around him, managing two more thrusts before he buries himself to the hilt and falls over the edge with you.

His face is buried in the crook of your neck, his breath coming hot against your skin. Behind you, the transparisteel is foggy, save for the places your hands left prints behind. Dizzily, you wonder what it looks like from the outside. You’re oddly proud of it, the physical evidence of what you’ve done.

You circle your arms around Din’s neck and he stays there, wrapped in your arms, until it gets too cold to lean against the metal of the console. When he moves, you make a small noise of protest; you don’t want him to leave. He hushes you and picks you up, one arm under your shoulders and the other under your knees, and carries you off his bed. As he turns away, you reach out for him, grabby hands like you’re the child asking for a toy. He can’t see the gesture in the darkness, but he joins you all the same. You fall asleep with your head on his chest, listening to his slow, deep breaths. 

☆

When you wake the next morning, he’s not there. But he left you his cloak, wrapped around you carefully so you don’t wake up cold. You linger in his bed for longer than you should, wrapped in his clothes with his scent on your skin. When you shift, you can tell you’re a bit sore. It feels good; you like it, the bone-deep tiredness and the physical memory of what you did with him. You’re certain that if you had a mirror, you’d see marks down your neck and chest from his mouth. 

It’s only when you hear the kid babbling outside that you’re forced out of bed. Your clothes are still on the floor of the cockpit, so you find a shirt and pants in the small sleeping quarters—you’re hoping they’re his clothes, and not pulled off one of his catches—and get dressed. Only when you’re wrapped in a full layer of clothes and his cloak for warmth do you open the door. 

Outside, the kid sees you and his little face lights up. You scoop him up and walk to the cockpit, where you fins the Mandalorian focused on readings displayed on the console. His helmet is back on, and you feel sadness slip down your chest like a sliver of ice. After last night, you’d almost forgotten the rules. 

You don’t say anything as you settle into the co-pilot’s seat. Despite the disappointment that comes from remembering his code, a thrill runs through you when you still make out the faint outline of your handprint on the windscreen. You fight a smile and busy yourself with straightening the kid’s coat. 

To your surprise, Din is the first to speak. “Your bet on the Kubaz trader paid off.”

You tilt your head, curious. 

“One of the pings from last night reached him. He radioed and said he’s on his way. Said he owes you a favor from Takodana.”

You smile.

“Care to share?”

“A story for another day.”

Din nods. His helmet is unreadable as always, but you can tell he’s watching you.

“You know, I—” he starts and stops. He gestures towards you and the child. “It turns out I—we— like having you around. I’ll take you to Trask, and you have to help me find the others like me, but after that…” 

You feel warmth blossom in your chest. “After that…?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking I need some help around here.” 

You bite your lip to stop the traitorous smile spreading across your face. “I’ll think about it.”

He nods. A week ago, you would’ve thought the gesture curt and dismissive. Now you know better. You just smile at him and let silence fall as you await your rescuers’ arrival.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that feeling when you start out trying to write plotless smut garbage, and then you write 8k words of plot anyway? Yeah. 
> 
> Anyway, this fic owes a great deal—both in style and characterization—to guardianangelcas’s [Rough Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651097/chapters/51629176%22), which is, like, the touchstone for all Mando x Reader fic. 
> 
> I hope y’all enjoy. I had fun writing this, even if it’s a bit different than my usual fare. As always, I appreciate comments/kudos, and I’m on [tumblr](https://letterfromvienna.tumblr.com/) now if you want to chat :)


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